East Kent Road Relay - Senior Men & Vet 45 Ladies victorious

220 athletes turned up for the second Road Relay meet of this season. With the Kent Championships taking place this weekend some of our younger runners who did well at Folkestone were notably absent, however the club put out four full teams to fly the red vests of IEK.

Invicta A consisted of Sam Hudson, Tim Corby, Chris Holmes & Abel Tsejay. With 18 senior men's teams entered on the night competition was going to be fierce. Sam, home from university, came in in first after leg one, giving a 24 second lead to Tim Corby, a strong run from Tim resulted in Chris Holmes taking a 14 sec lead into the third leg, Chris bettered Tim's time and was overtaken only by an in-form Michael Coleman who took the lead for his team South Kent Harriers A to have the advantage on the last leg. Abel had the task of catching their runner who with a 25 second lead was expected to win over the 2.2 mile course. To many runners' astonishment including some from our club, it was Abel who came in first winning by a 28 second margin. Abel & Sam were the quickest two runners on the night. Invicta A - you were brilliant. Ranked joint 2nd after round 2.

Our Men's Vet-40 team consisted of Peter Bowell, who handed over to Martin Kelk with the team placed second in their category, Martin ran the second fastestleg in the V45 category closing the gap by 31 secs, so then to Robert Whittaker who repeated the endeavour this time clawing back 25 secs. Steve Burt set offsecond and ran very well delivering a second place finish for the team. Invicta Men Vet 40. Ranked joint 1st with Ashford & District after round 2.

Invicta B consisted of Chris Harvey, Michael Gallyer-Barnett, Richard Hudson & Gavin Knight. Chris ran a strong leg, overtaking V40 Peter Bowell on the first leg. Everyone put in a good performance and worked hard around the course, it was pleasing to have 12 senior/vet men at one of these events.

Invicta Ladies Vet45 - the successful trio of Theresa Johns, Sue Cooper & Vicky Talbot-Rosner got their running order right on the night and beat strong competition from local clubs to win their age category. Theresa came in first after leg one, giving a narrow 5 second lead to Sue, Sue then extended the lead giving Vicky a 31 second lead on the last leg, Vicky then decided to run the fastest leg of her age category with a winning team margin of 1 minute. Team ranked 1st after round 2. Awesome.

All in all a very good evening's racing. PS make sure you eat before 9pm in Birchington, as everyone shuts up shop at this time. Some of Canterbury Harriers did in fact beat us to the chippy, I am pleased they won something on the night !! Hehehe. Birchington is the leader to date in terms of the best Fish & Chip supper - Seabells.